Bill Clinton: “We had quite a good talk, I thought. I explained to him what happened. I think in the beginning he was concerned that he…”

“We had quite a good talk, I thought. I explained to him what happened. I think in the beginning he was concerned that he didn't know about it in advance. I explained clearly what happened, that the United Nations asked for this, that Boutros-Ghali the day before had put out a press release supporting this action if the shelling didn't stop, that General Rose had received the appropriate approval from the civilian authority in Bosnia, and that it was an action taken under existing authority, and that indeed I thought that the U.N. had notified all the UNPROFOR members that it would be taken, but that it was not any kind of new or different thing. And when these things occur, there is often not a lot of time. There was just, you know, somewhere between 30 minutes and an hour and a half, I think, the decisionmaking time. I don't know the exact time, but we responded in an entirely appropriate way, I think, under the circumstances. Thank you.”